


Don’t Mind if I Fall (Head Over Feet)

by arrowinthesky (restfulsky5)



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Abandonment, Angst, Emotional Hurt, Forgiveness, Friendship, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Loneliness, M/M, Medication, Memory Loss, Mental Health Issues, Mutual Pining, Panic Attacks, Past Bruce/Selina, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Post The Dark Knight Rises, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery From Past Trauma, Rehabilitated Joker, Retired Bruce Wayne, Romance, Second Chances, Secret Identity, Slow Burn, Therapy, Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-01-04 13:29:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18344636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restfulsky5/pseuds/arrowinthesky
Summary: In the aftermath of great hurt, Bruce takes in a rehabilitated Joker, now known as Jack Napier, expecting the unwarranted generosity to distract him. Heal his own wounds. Ease his guilt. And it does. He just never figured on falling in love, too.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve placed this story after the events of The Dark Knight Rises. The Joker is rehabilitated, Alfred is back in Bruce’s life, and Bruce has returned to Gotham, but not in his caped capacity. After a brief time together, Selina left him, and Bruce has sustained another trauma since. Without having dealt with it completely, he takes Jack into his home. This is more of a character study centered around Bruce & Jack, so a few of the other characters won’t make much of an appearance. Bruce is basically ignoring the fact that John uses the cave as Nightwing, for (good) reasons that will come to light as we go along. Other things will become clearer, too, like what exactly happened to Bruce. Please note the past rape tag is in regards to his character.
> 
> Happy Birthday to the late and talented Heath Ledger. I, for one, continue to miss his presence in this world. RIP.

oOo

 

 

Jack stares at the door leading to the outside world and away from Arkham, unwilling to accept that he’s actually leaving this awful place. Putting it behind him. Escaping the madness. _His_ madness and its vestiges, left in these shadowed halls, for good.

 

He tucks his feet under his chair, crossing them at his ankles. The wool socks rub abrasively against his skin. He narrows his eyes on the hems of his pants, a new pair they’d given him, which are still too short. His shirt is a polyester blend and cornflower blue, but the sleeves stop at his elbows. The clothes don’t fit, but they’re not too uncomfortable that he can’t wear them. He should be grateful. And he is, but it’s jarringly clear nothing looks right on him. The second-hand, mismatched clothing only exacerbates his unusual posture, his gangly limbs that he can’t seem to control.

 

And he has to ask himself—because no one else seems to care—what will these people think of him? He’s a misfit. He has nothing to offer anyone.

 

Shifting in his seat, he twists his hands together on his lap, his mind whirling with questions, doubts, and worst case scenarios. What had he been thinking? Why had he agreed to go along with this? Who in their right mind would want to take custody of him? Let him live under the same roof?

 

He should make it easier on everyone and simply resign himself to a life here. He’d ask to return to his room. Quit before he started. Change his clothes, if his old clothes were still stuffed in the corner on the floor. Maybe unpack his bag, taking special care with the extra amenities they’d given him for this “exchange,” if they’d let him keep the small bottles. He’d lie back on his lumpy cot and stare up at the ceiling, waiting for his turn in the game room. Be alone, as always, because nobody wants to befriend an ex-clown.

 

It isn’t that he doesn’t want to start over somewhere. He just expects that they’ll change their minds and leave him here at Arkham to suffer. As they should. He’s gotten used to it. Change after nearly a decade is hard. Scary. And who isn’t to say one wrong move and they’ll send him back here, anyway? Is leaving even worth the effort and possible disappointment?

 

Thinking long and hard about his murky future, it just doesn’t make sense to him that they’re this forgiving. He doesn’t remember what he’s done, or the chaos for which they said he was responsible. But he’s been told the monstrosities he’d committed don’t matter now that he’s “cured.” Apparently, since his memory loss doesn’t matter to them, it shouldn’t matter to _him_.

 

He’s been given a clean slate, but he can’t accept it. Not completely. How can he? The unknown frightens the shit out of him. He’ll face the world as a different person, but no one will accept him. He’ll be expected to get a job, but who will hire him? He’s to commit to some kind of community service, now that his face is changed—the scars barely there anymore—but someone is bound to recognize him. They expect him to be normal now. With his past hounding him like a shadow, he’ll never be normal. He’ll never be free.

 

What is the fucking _point_?

 

He looks at the floor while he waits, feeling the eyes of the detectives boring into him. They’re to accompany him to his next home. Make sure no one hurts him.

 

That’s a laugh.

 

He wishes he was brave enough to ask to go back to his room where the closed space comforted him, but the woman—Montoya, he thinks—doesn’t like him. She hasn’t said it to his face, but he can just tell. There’s something in her eyes when she looks at him.

 

“He’s an hour late,” the other detective murmurs.

 

Bullock, he recalls. That’s another thing that bit the dust with his scars. His memory. Probably a result of the treatment.

 

“You think he changed his mind?” Bullock asks.

 

“Naw,” Montoya says. “Wayne probably got pulled over for speeding on the way.”

 

Jack’s head snaps up, his heart pounding straight of his chest. “W-Wayne?”

 

The man’s name conjures hazy memories that won’t stay hidden in his nightmares, the distressing visions that will no doubt haunt him for the rest of his life, deservedly so. Wayne. He—the Joker—had been at his penthouse. And so had... _Miss Dawes_. She’s a shadow in his mind. A permanent one.

 

Nausea swells in his throat like it does whenever he tries to conjure her face and fails. He chokes down on it and scratches at his arms, distracting himself from those thoughts. But he can’t stomach the implications of his memory loss, which gives him a free pass. He loathes it and digs his nails deeper into his skin, pretending they’re bugs burrowing their way into a new, permanent home. Something must be wrong with him that he’d rather imagine bugs on his skin. He stares at his arms, willing bugs to be there instead of the name that waves in his mind like a proud banner.

 

 _No no nonononono._ Wayne can’t be his benefactor. He simply can’t be. He doesn’t want any ties to his past. The penthouse is a gross reminder of his misdeeds.

 

Montoya walks over to him. He watches her from the corners of his eyes. Her smile is tight and condescending.

 

Jack swallows the lump in his throat. “The...penthouse?”

 

“No, the manor. Apparently, someone donated a new building to the orphanage and Wayne bought his place back. They didn’t tell you?” She stares down at him, where his skin stings, his nails scraping endlessly against it. She makes a sound of disgust and calls out to a nurse in the other room. “Nurse? He may need some help here.”

 

A nurse comes over, the one who stays with Jack every day, and places a warm hand on his wrist, as if that will stop him from picking at his skin.

 

“Wayne is going to have his hands full,” Bullock mutters.

 

Jack wrenches his hand from the nurse and wraps his arms around himself, rocking back and forth in a motion that soothes him, eyes squeezed shut. _NotWayneNotWayneNotWayne_

 

The nurse hums sympathetically. “Mr. Wayne and his associates have been alerted of Mr. Napier’s remaining mental issues.”

 

 _They have no right to send me there_ , he wants to say. But of course they do. They can send him anywhere.

 

“Mr. Napier, you’re hurting yourself,” the nurse says. “Please desist.”

 

He shakes his head. “I can’t.”

 

“You must, or we’ll have to medicate you again.”

 

His hands freeze. He takes a shallow breath. He hates his medicine. They give him too much. Always. “But it makes me sleepy.”

 

“Drowsy,” she corrects.

 

He shivers. “I don’t like it.”

 

“It helps you, Mr. Napier.”

 

It hurts him. How can something so degrading be helpful?

 

“Do you want Mr. Wayne to see you like this?”

 

Does he? Maybe it would be best.

 

He looks down at himself. The scratches—some of them, at least—have started to bleed. He wonders if Wayne is really prepared for someone like him. Maybe—maybe—he wouldn’t see Wayne at all. He has to still have money. And a life. And his mansion is fucking huge.

 

Jack imagines himself alone in it. Maybe a small room where no one notices him. It could be better than this.

 

“Mr. Napier,” the nurse chides again.

 

He looks at her through his lashes, miserable. “Fine,” he whispers and slips his hands under his thighs when she directs him.

 

Montoya glances sideways at her partner. “What did I tell you?” she mutters.

 

Bullock gives her a look Jack can’t interpret. “He’s been like this for what? Three? Four years?”

 

“Four going on five.” Montoya’s mouth twists into an condemning smile. “We haven’t seen the half of it, I’ve been told.”

 

Ignoring them, Jack continues to rock back and forth, gaze shifting to his shoes, a pair of loafers with scuff marks and worn thin. But he likes them. They’re comfortable and the only thing that fits him. But he doesn’t like _them_. The detectives make him feel worse than he already does.

 

Against his will, he wants Wayne to come get him and rescue him from this hellhole. Even though he’s heard he’s still an idiot, despite cheating death. He’s watched him on television before, when he felt up to watching TV. But, he thinks carefully, given that Wayne or his people most likely designed a way to take his manor back from the poor orphans, it’s obvious Wayne doesn’t care about anyone but himself. How is the man going to watch over a reformed criminal? Does Jack even want to be around a guy like that? Does anyone care that he might want to stay?

 

He digs his nails into his skin, wanting to crawl out of the prison that is his life.

 

“Damn,” Bullock whistles. “He’ll need watched around the clock.”

 

Jack cringes, drawing his shoulders up towards his ears. If only he could shrink to nothing. If only he could hide. He might as well be hidden. He hates it when people talk about him like he isn’t in the same room. It’s humiliating. Even though being shamed is an everyday occurrence for him now, it stings every time.

 

“Why Mr. Wayne?” he croaks, visions of nameless faces swimming before him, and the clown that he’s grown to hate.

 

“We’re just as surprised as you are,” he says, looking down at Jack. “No one’s seen Wayne since he returned from the dead. He turned recluse after he ran his company down to the ground, and he’s done it again.”

 

Recluse? Jack wrinkles his nose. He’d forgotten that part of it. He remembers one of the playboy’s past extravagant purchases—it had been discussed in the cells at Arkham for years after the fact. The ballerinas had been a popular topic among the men, but Wayne more so. Very much so. The billionaire whisked the entire Russian ballet away on a cruise, making the front page. So it doesn’t make sense that Wayne, a playboy, would hide in his mansion.

 

His curiosity gets the best of him. “What?” he can’t help but ask. “Why?”

 

The detectives stare at him. “Why?” Montoya asks.

 

He swallows hard. He hasn’t felt curious about anything in a long time. No one likes it when he is—his questions seem to unnerve people—but this news doesn’t match up his impression of the billionaire at all.

 

“Some say he’s deformed,” Bullock says, shrugging. “Developed a hunchback after being caught by Banes’s men, and that’s why he pretended to be dead.”

 

Montoya rolls her eyes. “He’s not deformed,” she says. “And he doesn’t have a hunchback. Gordon saw him once. Just said he looked...older. Gray around the temples. Said he looked haunted. That Wayne’s ghost had returned but not the real man.”

 

Bullock frowns. “Huh. The commish is turning poetic on us.”

 

“Hardly,” she says dryly. “He’s just always had a soft heart for orphans, even billionaire orphans.”

 

“And ex-criminals,” Bullock points out. “Personally, I think he’s out of his depth on this one. The guy can’t even keep his own house from burning down. How will he manage a redeemed psychopath?”

 

 _Exactly_. “Maybe he’s actually crazy?” Jack blurts out.

 

Both the detectives look at him.

 

“Huh,” Bullock says.

 

“That would be ironic,” Montoya says blandly.

 

Jack flushes. “Considering who I am...it makes sense if he’s off his rocker.”

 

Bullock cocks his head. “You wonder. I always did think Wayne was one loose marble.”

 

Montoya smirks. “Just one?”

 

“Maybe not even. Maybe... _half_.”

 

She lightly punches him in the arm. “Boss said to be nice to Wayne.”

 

“It isn’t like he has money to donate, anymore.”

 

“You don’t know that. They proved it was fraud.”

 

Bullock frowns. “Yeah, you’re probably right. He’s probably hoarding it. Asshole.”

 

Montoya stares at Jack, her expression unsettled. “You ready for that?”

 

She’s asking _him_.

 

The blood rushes to Jack’s head. “Do I have a choice?”

 

She pauses. “I take it that’s a no.”

 

 

oOo

 

The ride to Arkham seems to stretch on forever from the Palisades. His body stiff, Bruce eases his legs out in front of him in the limo, taking great care with his left leg. He wraps two hands around his knee, moving his leg until it is loosely bent, nothing more, nothing less. Despite the injections, he still can’t straighten it without gritting his teeth from the pain, so he doesn’t.

 

Sighing, he glances beside him, looking for that bottled water Alfred had set inside. He can’t find it, but it could be on the seat across from him, where he can’t reach unless he shifts his legs forward. Which he can’t do without bending his damn knee.

 

He sighs and leans back against the seat. The limo is large and a bit excessive, but he needs the room. Anything smaller will cramp his style—and his knee. “You didn’t have to come with me, Alfred.”

 

The butler looks at him through the rear view mirror. “Oh? You were going to drive?’

 

“If necessary.”

 

Alfred’s eyes are kind. Too kind. There is no way he can drive, but neither of them will admit it. They’re both too stubborn.

 

“You know I had to come, Master Wayne,” Alfred murmurs.

 

He stares out the window, wishing it would rain. It had been weeks since the last rain, a short downpour, and everything in Gotham is withered and dying. He resents the decay after all he’s done to protect it. He resents needing help when all he’s ever done is save other people. He resent _this_. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

 

Alfred’s mouth tightens like it always does when they’re about to have an argument. “A few months isn’t enough time to heal, and then gain a houseguest. A criminal houseguest.”

 

He tips his head back and closes his eyes, steeling himself against the headache he knows will come soon after a conversation like this. “I’m fine.”

 

“Fine isn’t insomnia. Or night terrors.”

 

He forgot to mention the panic attacks. “Those things aren’t new.”

 

“And you think bringing a psychopath into your home will make things better again?”

 

He imagines what Alfred is actually asking— _and you think bringing that psychopath back into your home will make things better?_

 

But what option does he have? He can’t, in good conscience, let someone who is now completely sane remain at that place. “He can’t stay there, Alfred.”

 

“He can.”

 

“He’s rehabilitated. He’s not the Joker anymore. He doesn’t deserve to be there.” Or out there in the world, alone. He knows for a fact no one wanted to hire him in Gotham.

 

“He isn’t yours to manage.”

 

His spine stiffens. “Of course he is. I’m the one who put him there, instead of killing him.”

 

Alfred eyes widen. It’s the first emotional reaction he’s elicited from the older man in weeks.

 

Bruce’s heart pounds. He wants to see more, something that shows him the old man still cares.

 

“Master Wayne,” Alfred rebukes.

 

He stares back, defiant. “I should’ve killed him. You know it. I know it.”

 

Alfred’s eyes smart.

 

It’s cruel, but he keeps egging him on.

 

“He never deserved a second chance.”

 

“You don’t think that,” Alfred says brokenly.

 

“Maybe I do,” he snaps.

 

Alfred looks at him sharply, his eyes piercing too deep. “Master Wayne.”

 

He can never hold his own against Alfred’s supreme, chiding tone.

 

He deflates, his shoulders sagging into the leather seats. “No,” he says hoarsely, head bowed, hunched over in his own brokenness. “You know I don’t.”

 

“It will work out,” Alfred says. “You’ll see.”

 

The air is suffocating thick with their lies to each other. “I thought you didn’t like the idea.”

 

Alfred brings the limo to a stop. “No,” he says, shutting off the car. “I didn’t. But I think it will give you the purpose you’ve been looking for since—”

 

_Since the Bat died? Since Selina left him? Since his spirit was all but destroyed?_

 

“Don’t,” Bruce snaps.

 

Alfred wisely responds in silence.

 

Bruce sighs, staring at the front gates of Arkham. “Wait here,” he mutters, opening the door before Alfred can step out to get it for him.

 

“Would you like me to go with you?”

 

“No,” he says, getting out of the car with one smooth movement despite his cane and the way his knee screams with the unfamiliar ache of actual use. He tests his weight on the cane. Satisfied, he shuts the door and leans over to look Alfred in the eye. “You’d probably scare him.”

 

Alfred’s eyes fill with a familiar mirth, and the walls Bruce had carefully constructed around his heart crack, allowing some of the warmth of the moment to filter through.

 

It feels strange after all this time, but he can’t stop it. He stares into Alfred’s eyes, wondering why the hell the man still puts up with him.

 

“Quite true,” Alfred quips. “I’ll just wait here, then.”

 

Bruce firms his mouth. He turns away and starts to make his way to the front entrance.

 

“And, for the record, Master Wayne,” Alfred adds, “if you think that bringing him into the fold will make me want to leave you for a second time—”

 

Bruce freezes. He can’t spare Alfred a glance back. He hadn’t _then_ , and he can’t now. If he does, he’s not sure he’ll be able to hold it together. _Fuck_.

 

Alfred takes a breath—and Bruce—he can’t fucking breathe.

 

“—you’re sorely mistaken,” the older man finishes softly. “I’m not leaving.”

 

Bruce expels a slow, torturous breath, and nods. He moves forward again—what else can he do? He’s here, at Arkham to pick up the Joker for purely selfish reasons. Of course, Alfred sees. He knows why he’s here, and yet he brought Bruce despite those reasons.

 

Alfred a fool, but he is the bigger fool.

 

Maybe the Joker had been right all those years ago. Maybe he—Wayne—should be sharing that cell.

 

If he had been, maybe he would have been spared the most fucking pain he’d ever—

 

He jolts himself out of the thought, banishing it before he loses himself in another pity party. His eyes trace the scrolled iron work that had been there for years, and the newer sign that he himself had funded five years ago. But now, the Asylum needs a new coat of pain and who knows what else on the inside. He’s neglected it, just like everything else. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to tour the rest of Arkham today. He has nothing else to see here.

 

Just this, he thinks, as he shuffles inside the Asylum, his cane clicking on the floor with each step.

 

Just the broken man in the chair staring at him, his eyes wide and reflecting fear. Awe. _Shock_. And a past burgeoning with committed, evil deeds clinging to his wiry form.

 

And he—Bruce—is to take him in his home? Watch him? Interact with him? Guide him to becoming a better person?

 

Like he, a washout, has all the right answers.

 

Like he has the wherewithal to help someone else when all he wants to do is crawl back in bed.

 

The enormity of the situation is a punch to the gut. “Fuck,” he swears before he can stop himself.

 

Montoya’s brow raise. “Sir?”

 

But Bruce can’t stop staring at Napier, who looks like a normal guy, a guy who doesn’t deserve to endure a lonely existence in Bruce’s house. Who hates Bruce, already, without even knowing he’s the Bat.

 

Alfred had warned him. _He’d warned him._

 

He feels the eyes of the detectives on him, sees the hurt in Jack’s eyes, pure hurt, and flushes. “Sorry. A bad habit I picked up recently. It’s just been a long day,” he says hastily.

 

She nods. “Sure, being that you’re a billionaire, and a single man, I guess your life is...full.”

 

He ignores the jab.

 

“You ready to go?” she asks him.

 

Bruce plasters on a smile he’s all but forgotten how to fake. Damn, but he’s not used to this playboy persona, anymore. “Is he?” He looks at Napier. “Are you? You’re not going to try to stab me or anything? You don’t have knives hidden in that jacket of yours, do you? A comb, maybe? Razor? Pencil? I’ve heard about your, um, trick. Ouch.” He chuckles. It fades when the detectives stare at him blandly.

 

“Yeah,” Jack mumbles into the awkward silence. He stands and picks his bag off the floor, heaving it over one shoulder. “I mean—no.”

 

Bruce suppresses a snort and gives him a once over, making sure to inspect his loafers—which look like they’d been run over by a truck—with a disdainful glance. “Well, let’s go, then. We’ll have to get you a new pair of shoes. I can’t have those in the mansion. They’ll mark up my floors.”

 

Jack’s gaze instantly drops. Montoya glares at Bruce.

 

Shame pricks his chest. He’s rusty at this, alright. Horrible at it, actually. “Eh, on second thought. Alfred can take care of it later,” he adds with a flick of his hand. “Let’s go.”

 

Montoya raises a hand, stopping Bruce. “Don’t forget—we’re following you.”

 

“Why you? Why not a regular escort?”

 

The detectives exchange looks. “Mr Wayne,” Montoya begins. “Let me be frank.”

 

“By all means.”

 

“We know him better than most—his past, that is. Which is why we’ll be stopping in everyday for a few weeks.”

 

Over his dead body. “Like I told Gordon, it’s not necessary, I assure you.”

 

“Like Gordon told _us_ , we’re going. Or have you forgotten the press loves you?”

 

He scowls, yet it isn’t like he’s going to go all Bat on someone even if the paparazzi does accost him. He simply can’t, not with his bum leg. “I’m half as rich as before—”

 

“Not broke?” Bullock asks.

 

He shakes his head. “—but I doubt anyone cares.”

 

“Just the same,” Montoya says breezily and, to his chagrin, holds the door open for him.

 

Gritting his teeth, he makes his way slowly past her, hoping he’s just imagining the way even Jack steers clear of him, eyeing his feet as if he’s worried he’ll trip him. It’s humbling. “Thank you...Lieutenant.”

 

“You remembered.”

 

He shrugs. “It’s a gift.”

 

She smirks. “I’m sure.”

 

They walk outside. It’s miserably warm in Gotham, and it isn’t long before his shirt is soaked at the armpits. Shit, but he’s out of shape. He’s not quite halfway to the limo. Everyone is waiting for him. It’s even more humbling.

 

He wipes the back of his hand across his brow, wanting, just once, for the world to swallow him whole.

 

“You all right, there, Old Man?” Montoya asks amusedly.

 

He huffs a breath. “You can go on,” he urges Jack. “I’ll meet you there.”

 

Jack nods.

 

“Your butler’s British, right?” Bullock asks. He turns to Jack. “Got quite the wicked humor. Good luck. You’ll need it.”

 

Jack stops, face blanching.

 

“Really?” Bruce gives Bullock a frown before looking at Jack. “He’s harmless. He won’t bite.” He hesitates. “Much.”

 

Jack squares his jaw but matches his pace, his long legs bending awkwardly as he tries to compensate for Bruce’s slower stride.

 

He’s so focused on beating Jack to the limo on his own two feet that he doesn’t see Alfred outside of the vehicle until he offers Jack a hand.

 

“Mr. Napier, I presume?” Alfred says.

 

Jack hesitates, then reaches for the butler’s hand. “Yeah. You can—you can call me Jack.”

 

Alfred clasps his hand and shakes it firmly. “I apologize for being late, Jack. Master Wayne forgot how to make his own bed.”

 

Montoya snorts.

 

Bruce sighs. “Maybe if you’d gotten me up on time, we wouldn’t have been late.”

 

Alfred opens the passenger door. “Perhaps if you started using your alarm clock...”

 

“I have one?” Not giving him time to answer, he shoves his cane towards Jack, and grips the doorframe, easing himself inside carefully. He slides into the seat in the far corner, giving Jack room to sit on the other side.

 

Jack looks at the floor once the door is shut behind them.

 

“Cane,” Bruce clips out.

 

Jack stares at him.

 

Bruce sighs. “You’re still holding it.”

 

The younger man blinks down at his hand. “Oh.” He thrusts the cane at him.

 

Narrowing his eyes, Bruce takes it and rests it against the seat.

 

Jack swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “What happened?”

 

As Alfred eases the limo out of the lot, Bruce swallows, wondering if they could stop at his usual clothier first. Maybe find Jack some clothes before heading home. Or at least order him several things. He looks back to see who is driving the detective’s car.

 

Montoya.

 

Alfred won’t be able to lose her. Bruce should know. She drives like a maniac.

 

They’ll have to postpone the trip. Bruce can’t fathom being tied to them like that. Jack will never be at ease with himself. He’ll have to talk with Gordon and convince him to drop the detail. He may have lost his stamina, but he’s still the Bat. He’s the last person who needed help from the police.

 

Then again, he’s Wayne. An incompetent fool.

 

“Sorry,” Jack says, his nasally voice shattering Bruce’s reverie. “I didn’t mean to be intrusive.”

 

Bruce stares at Napier, whose mouth was wide and frightening red. He blinks several times, until the obtuse red mouth fades and the rest of his face, which has no other visible scars, is startling clear. He hadn’t noticed how young Napier looks. At least a decade younger than he does, Bruce thinks to himself despairingly. “No. It’s not that. I—it was just—another accident.”

 

“Another?”

 

“Yes,” he says evenly.

 

Jack nods, but his expression clearly tells Bruce he doesn’t believe him.

 

“I get therapy for it,” Bruce offers, although he doesn’t know why. “And injections. It should be better in a few weeks.”

 

“Not soon enough,” Alfred says, looking at him in the mirror. “Which reminds me, Master Wayne. Dr. Thompkins and Dr. Sinclair both contacted me while you were inside.”

 

Bruce grinds his teeth together. This is hardly the time and place to discuss it, which, he thinks, is Alfred’s point in doing so.

 

“About missing your latest appointments,” Alfred adds when he says nothing.

 

Bruce waits a beat, fixing a steady gaze out the window. “Duly noted.”

 

“You’ll reschedule, I assume. Tomorrow?”

 

Alfred won’t let this go until he answers with what he wants. “You assume correctly,” he says begrudgingly. Feeling Jack’s eyes on him, he mimics something like a smile. “Or the day after. Once Jack’s settled in.”

 

Jack twitches, one of his long legs bumping into Bruce’s sore knee.

 

Bruce hisses out a breath.

 

“Sorry.” Jack quickly pulls his leg back, then mumbles, “I’ll be fine.”

 

“Still.” He thinks of what he’d like to do. “Do you read? Play card games? You’re still good at that, aren’t you? The clown thing?”

 

Jack’s expression falls.

 

“Master Wayne!” Alfred sharply interjects.

 

Jack winces. So does Bruce.

 

_Foot-in-mouth._

 

But Wayne’s an idiot. An asshole. He has to act like one.

 

He smiles innocently. “It doesn’t hurt to ask,” he muses aloud. “Isn’t that what you always tell me?”

 

Alfred glares at him through the mirror.

 

“So…” Wayne drawls. “Cards?”

 

“Not my thing,” Jack whispers like the words tear at his throat.

 

Wayne throws him a winning smile. “How about chess?”

 

Jack hesitates, then nods.

 

Bruce suppresses a honest sigh of relief. He has been ever-so-bored out of his mind for weeks. “I’ll have Alfred set up the board.”

 

“You don’t have to entertain me.”

 

Bruce shrugs. “It will be fun.”

 

Jack looks at him like he’s lost his mind. And maybe he has.

 

They can’t get home fast enough. The silence burdens Bruce, and his social incompetence becomes more apparent with each passing minute. He’s certain Alfred goes ten below the speed limit to antagonize him.

 

Jack doesn’t look pleased when the reach the mansion. The detectives accompany them inside, asking Bruce a thousand questions he doesn’t want to answer but does, and politely, to appease them.

 

Security? _Check_. Bedroom without windows? _Check_. No glass? _Check check_. Finally, he decides to play dumb and tells them to ask Gordon, who knows this, already. He makes a mental note to thank Fox for speaking with the commissioner on his behalf.

 

Satisfied, they finally leave with the promise one of them would be back tomorrow.

 

Bruce stares at his guest, then his butler, who he thinks should show Jack his room.

 

But Alfred gives Bruce a long look. “I’ll prepare lunch,” he says and, with that, wanders towards the kitchen, whistling.

 

Alright, then. He jerks his head towards the staircase. “Come with me.”

 

Bruce begins the long trek up the stairs, cursing his knee as Jack takes each step with a bundle of energy, and questioning his good sense. Why the hell is he trying to help this man when he can hardly help himself?

 

“Thank you, Mr. Wayne,” Jack says when they reach the top.

 

“Call me Bruce.”

 

“Bruce,” Jack adds hastily.

 

“Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t seen the bedroom.”

 

“It has to be better than a cell,” Jack mumbles.

 

Guilt pricks his conscience. Had Bruce actually given a shit to the people and things going on around him, he could have gotten Jack out of Arkham a long time ago. “Hmm.”

 

They come to a large hallway and Bruce leads him to the first door on the right. “My bedroom is across the hall.”

 

Jack looks at him in surprise.

 

“This was my old one, when I was younger,” Bruce explains, apologizing when he doesn’t know why. It isn’t like the room lacks anything. Or the bathroom. Everything has been recently updated.

 

He unlocks the door and lets Jack enter first.

 

Jack drops his bag, mouth dropping as he takes it in. “You’re g-giving me this?”

 

“I need to keep my eye on you.” He hardens his expression. “You won’t give me any trouble, right? I have Commissioner Gordon on speed dial.”

 

Gordon, of course, knows who he is, but Jack doesn’t.

 

Somehow, he has to make sure it stays that way.

 

Jack doesn’t hear him. He’s fixated by the ornate furniture and decor Alfred had kept or found once Bruce had come back from the dead. Bruce still doesn’t have the heart to look at the paintings and prefers not to see them every day. They’d been gifts from his parents and better kept in here, hidden from sight. They make up for the windows, which are heavily boarded. A precaution. For Jack’s sake.

 

“I’ll be back to get you in two hours,” Bruce says finally, stepping away with a grunt. His hand shakes as he grips the cane. He needs to sleep. Badly. He’d tossed and turned last night, thinking about the Joker. “You’ll find most of what you need in the dresser and bathroom.” They’ll have to discuss other arrangements—like the use of a razor—later. “Make yourself at home.”

 

Jack stares blankly at him, his eyes hollowed out, his hair falling limply to his shoulders, looking like nothing in the world could fix him.

 

It’s almost as if...he’s staring at a reflection of himself.

 

“Really,” he says, panic clawing at his chest. He backpedals, leaning heavily on his cane and seeking a way out as fast as he can. “Anything I have? It’s yours.”

 

He leaves without saying good-bye or telling him anything of importance about the manor or where the fucking dining room is. He closes the door behind him more harshly than he’d intended.

 

As he limps across the hall to his room, he thinks he hears the man behind the door cry out with a single ragged and broken breath, followed by a weighted echo of silence.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

oOo

 

Jack stands alone in the bedroom, the sheer decadence of his new world beginning to sink in. The mansion is monstrous, its contents, except for those in this room, sparse yet screaming big money.

 

Bruce Wayne, broke? Hardly. He’s as rich as he’s ever been, not that Jack remembers anything about that. But he’s heard enough rumors and now seen for himself—Wayne is a wealthy bastard.

 

His own unsuppressed groan pulls him out of his daze, and he staggers towards the bed, falling ungracefully on his back. He bounces lightly, and smiles wryly to himself, staring up at the ceiling. His gaze slides from the walls to the fucking fancy doorknobs to the plush carpet he’d soiled with the dirty bottoms of his shoes. Shoes that had walked where killers and rapists and liars and thieves had trod.

 

It’s too much. All of it.

 

He jackknifes to a seated position, dropping his head into his hands in defeat. He can’t go anywhere without feeling like a fish out of water. He doesn’t remember much anything of his old life, but he knows that a room like this is far from what he’s used to. It reminds him that he’ll never be good enough for a place like this, not for all the rehabilitation in the world. His depression claws at his chest, and he shuts his eyes against the gothic— _extravagance_ —of his surroundings.

 

He inhales and exhales in repeated, slow breaths. He’s really here. In a mansion. Not a shithole asylum. Here, with one of the world’s biggest playboys for a babysitter, a man who is everything the press thought him to be—but also not. Wayne is a confusing guy, and he wonders if anyone really knows the man under the mask of money. There’s something about him that he can’t put his finger on just yet, not that it matters. If Wayne is a different kind of animal than the press makes him out to be, who is he to care? Wayne can be who he wants behind closed doors, if it allows him the freedom to be himself. It’s what Jack wants for himself, too.

 

It’s surreal. One minute, he’s living out the rest of his sorry life in a place that gives you nothing. The next minute, Wayne literally offered everything he has on a silver platter.

 

One thing is for sure. Wayne hasn’t lost a single dime. And, he thinks as he tests the mattress by bouncing on it with abandon followed by a string of uncontrolled laughter, the bed too soft. He’ll have to sleep on the floor where it’s most familiar to sleep at all. Maybe make himself a tent out of a sheet. He does better in small places. Not what looks to be a grand hall.

 

He threads his fingers through his hair and yanks, letting out a sharp, guttural cry. It had sounded as if Wayne wanted him to stay here for awhile while he takes care of things. Like he expects him to freshen up or take a cat nap. But Jack won’t be able to sleep—it is late morning, after all—and although he’s overwhelmed by the grandness of it all, he likes to know all he can about his surroundings. Like he knows Arkham like the back of his own hand. Or his own damn face, the face everyone hates to look at.

 

But he’s stuck here, and he has to obey the rules. If he didn’t, who knew what would happen to him at Arkham. Things had started getting interesting there, and not in a good way.

 

And although he doesn’t feel intelligent, he knows he isn’t a stupid man. Sometimes facts—random, crazy things no one should know—have slipped out, and he has no idea how he even knows them. Like, Arkham’s doctors and the strange things they wanted him to do or take...

 

He has a feeling that Wayne had rescued him from more than just a life sentence at Arkham.

 

He shivers, and his leg begins bouncing up and down. Feeling jittery even without the cup of coffee he’d been promised by the detectives, he glances around his room, shoulders hunched low as if he’s being watched. He always feels like this, but here, in a new place, the feeling is even stronger. He hopes Wayne hasn’t placed cameras in his room. He’d understand, but it would be a lousy invasion of privacy, despite his past attempts to hurt himself.

 

He might as well take a look around at his bedroom, at least, and maybe get that shower. He has nothing—absolutely nothing—better to do.

 

oOo

 

 

Bruce had just changed into his pajamas and robe when Alfred knocked on his door.

 

Bruce sighs and lets him in. “Did you even go downstairs?”

 

“I stayed just around the corner.”

 

“You heard everything?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“And?”

 

Alfred smiles over the tray he’s carrying. “He just needs some time. And, if you don’t mind me saying, Master Wayne, so do you. Now, take your medicine so I can begin making lunch.”

 

His gaze falls his eyes on the pills he’d conveniently forgotten to take this morning. “There are two.”

 

“Congratulations, Master Wayne. You can still count.”

 

He rolls his eyes and finishes tying the belt around his waist. “Just one makes me groggy.”

 

“Since Mr. Napier will be otherwise occupied in his room, Master Wayne, you can spare the hour nap.”

 

He grudgingly takes it from the tray and places it in his mouth, gulping the water from the glass Alfred had also provided. He dislikes the medication, but Alfred insists, and so does his therapist. And, if he’s honest, it does improve his overall perception of his life. He’s never wanted to make things difficult for Alfred and finds that taking this tiny pill puts a smile on the man’s face.

 

For Alfred, he thinks to himself.

 

“Will that be all, sir?”

 

Bruce crawls onto his bed, wanting to deny the medication is this fast-acting, but his limbs feel as if they’re weighted down by sandbags. “Do we still get the paper?”

 

“Oh, yes. I pay for it myself since my employer went bankrupt.”

 

He sends him a tiny glare. “May I read it later?”

 

“If you bring the dishes from the table.”

 

“I’m not paying you—”

 

Alfred nods. “Indeed, you are not.”

 

Bruce huffs. “You were the one who didn’t want any money,” he reminds him.

 

“I made a profit selling the things you…discarded.”

 

“In the event of my death.”

 

“Very right, Sir.”

 

“I saved everyone in this city,” he deadpans.

 

“Except for yourself,” Alfred says gently. “Which is why I’m here now. It is my job, after all.”

 

Bruce looks at him, eyes pooling with tears he never expected. “Wake me before lunch?” he asks, voice hoarse. “And lock my door behind you?”

 

Alfred waits a beat. Then, “As you wish.”

 

Once Alfred leaves, and he hears the definite click of his door locking, Bruce slips under the covers without removing his robe.

 

He pulls the collar up past his ears, pressing his face into the pillows as much as he can without suffocating himself.

 

He can’t recall the last time he’s slept without his robe, or the thick, long-sleeved pajamas. The extra layers give him the illusion that it’s actually safe to let go and sleep.

 

But nothing is safe anymore.

 

Not even his own damn home. And certainly not Gotham.

 

oOo

 

After Jack showers—in the mammoth sized stall that could pack at least thirty hims inside at the same time—he puts on the only decent pair of pants he’d brought with him. Dark skinny jeans with holes on the knees and fraying pockets. At least they come down to his ankles. He buttons the black shirt his therapist had given him as a going away present, pulling up the sleeves since they’re too short, anyway, and combs his wet hair, using a spritz he found in the bathroom to keep it from getting frizzy. He admits he’s self-conscious about his hair, which always curls even when he tries to comb it straight. He hates it, because people recognize it. He’d like nothing better than to cut it, or get it professionally straightened. He wonders if Wayne would let him.

 

It’s pathetic that he even has to think about asking his new ward something like that, but he’s not a proud man. Living at Arkham? No one can keep their pride for long.

 

He refuses to wear his shoes again because the carpet is amazing and tucks them under the bed, out of the way. If Wayne comes in the bedroom, he could trip over them and hurt himself. Like Jack needs a mark like that on his record.

 

He stands in the middle of the room, reveling in the way the carpet feels cool and soft against his feet, for at least five minutes. There is no carpet in Arkham except for in the guest hall and the main office. The game room doesn’t even have a rug. Everything is cold. Impersonal. Dingy. Dark.

 

He longs for brightness. Freedom. Energy in his surroundings. Maybe—maybe even laughter.

 

He’s not sure he’ll get that here, especially without windows in his bedroom, but at least he’ll have the freedom to wander the manor when it suits Wayne and his old man.

 

Sighing, he decides to put the rest of his meager belongings in the dresser. It’s surprisingly—not empty.

 

His mouth drops open. He rifles through the neatly folded piles of shirts, underwear, and socks—being careful as to not mess the folding. It doesn’t look like clothing Wayne would wear, but why would they be here? He’d gotten the impression Wayne wanted to order him new shoes—which means, he hadn’t bought things for him. Right?

 

He scratches the tip of his nose. It couldn’t have been Mr. Pennyworth’s doing, could it? It seems more likely, since the man is observant as hell. It’s obvious Wayne doesn’t care about much, except for Jack’s shoes not marking up his floor.

 

A short rap on the door interrupts his musings.

 

His shoulders tense as he goes to the door. He opens it carefully. “Yes?” he asks, before he even looks who it is. In fact, he stares down at his feet, expecting it to be Wayne, thinking he’s offended him. It’s only been thirty minutes, maybe forty.

 

“I thought you might like to see part of the manor.”

 

He jerks his eyes up to meet the old butler’s even expression, countered by a glimpse of kindness in his eyes. “I—I—sure.”

 

Pennyworth looks down at Jack's feet and quirks a brow. “The floors of the manor in the East wing can be cool, even on days like this. I suggest wearing shoes, Mr. Napier.”

 

He hesitates.

 

“Yours will be fine,” Pennyworth assures him.

 

He nods, then grabs his socks and shoes, putting them on as he’s going out the door. “I thought Mr. Wayne was sleeping?”

 

Pennyworth tips his head. “You’re very perceptive. Indeed, Master Wayne is...indisposed at the moment.”

 

Who the hell says indisposed? Or, better yet, _Master_?

 

But Jack nods politely, following him down the corridor. “He seemed...tired.”

 

“Did he?”

 

Wayne’s ragged appearance had been difficult to miss. “Did something happen to him?”

 

Alfred moves quickly towards the stairs. “Right this way. I thought, also, you might like to help prepare dinner?”

 

Alfred Pennyworth had just deflected answering his question about his employer, or Jack will eat his hat. “Sure,” he says after a beat. “I was a little bored. Couldn’t sleep.”

 

“That’s what I suspected. This is new for you, after all.”

 

He tries not to gape at everything—really, he tries—but he can’t get over the quality of wealth in the manor. And when they got to the grand staircase, which would eventually lead to the corridor they’d take to the kitchen, he stopped in his tracks, mesmerized by the grand front doors. For reasons he can’t explain, he imagines a young Bruce Wayne running around, his mother chasing after the toddler, his father wearing a suit and tie as he comes home from work.

 

The image quickly morphs into one of terror. An alley, not a gleaming marbled floor. A mother and father, collapsed on the ground in their own blood. A small boy huddled beside them terrified and confused.

 

Jack’s chest squeezes tight, pushing a ragged cry from his throat.

 

The Waynes’ tragic death—the image in his mind—makes him sick. Because it sounds familiar. Like that little boy could be him, not just Wayne.

 

“It took me years to get used to it, too,” Pennyworth says apologetically, mistaking the sound for disbelief.

 

“Has it always been this…big?”

 

“Master Wayne made some renovations of his own over a decade ago, when he’d returned.”

 

“Returned?”

 

“From India.”

 

His brows raise. “He travels.”

 

“For both business and pleasure, yes.”

 

He thinks for a moment. “He hasn’t for a long time. Travel, I mean. Or participated in his family’s company, has he?”

 

Pennyworth slows to a stop and turns to face him. “What makes you say that?”

 

The question—the look in the old man’s eyes—frighten him. “N-n-no reason,” he says, swallowing thickly.

 

“No,” Pennyworth says slowly. “None of that. I’d like to hear why you think Master Wayne no longer travels.”

 

He looks at his worn loafers and blows out a slow breath. “Alright. He’s become a recluse, first of all. And he’s unwell.” And not just physically. Wayne had been nervous. Agitated.

 

“That’s two.”

 

“He’s afraid—” He hesitates, biting his lower lip. He’s not sure how truthful he should be.

 

“Afraid? Of what?”

 

Oh—hell—it’s not like he has anything to lose by speaking what’s on his mind. “Of people seeing him like this. Of not living up to what they expect of him. Of—of being himself, even if it’s not much more than this. Being a—a cripple. And alone. And liking being alone, because it hurts too much to try anything different.” For a moment, Jack wonders if he isn’t describing a little about himself, too.

 

Alfred is silent.

 

Nervous, Jack looks at him through his lashes. “I—I’m sorry. That was out of line.”

 

“Don’t be. If there’s anything I am, it’s honest with him.” Pennyworth suddenly smiles. “It wouldn’t hurt to have a little more honesty within the walls.”

 

The moment is suddenly too serious. He shrugs. “If you say so.”

 

“I do.” Pennyworth begins walking again. “Now, tell me, Mr. Napier, do you prefer Mulligatawny Soup or Master Wayne’s usual favorite—seared steak?

 

“Melli—gut— _what_?”

 

“It’s an East Indian-inspired recipe Master Wayne prefers when he’s in these moods. A little hot on the tongue. Keeps his mind off things.”

 

Jack thinks about this. “He’s in a mood?”

 

“He will be when he awakens.”

 

This doesn’t sound good. “Why?”

 

“He didn’t sleep last night, worried what you would think of him and your new room at the manor.”

 

Jack’s mouth forms a silent O.

 

“I slipped a bit of a sedative in his water.” Alfred looks at him guiltily. “He’ll be asleep all afternoon.”

 

 

oOo

 

 

When Bruce finally finds Alfred and Jack in the garden, both wearing a pair of green rubber boots, he has nothing but strong words to say—directed at Alfred.

 

He nearly trips on a pile of discarded weeds, and curses, “Fuck.”

 

They both look at him, Jack’s eyes wide as saucers.

 

“Master Wayne,” Alfred says calmly.

 

“What the hell did you give me, Alfred?” he demands.

 

“Language, Master Wayne.”

 

“The fuck I’m worried about language when you drugged me.”

 

Alfred smoothly hands Jack the potted plant he holds in his hands. “Language,” he repeats firmly, eyes unyielding

 

He’s not a boy of six or ten to be reprimanded. “The hell, Alfred,” he snarls.

 

Jack’s grip loosens on the pot, and he scrambles to hold it under Bruce’s glare.

 

“Maybe you shouldn’t be out here,” he says to Jack.

 

Jack gives a jerking nod.

 

“No,” Alfred says. “He stays.”

 

“He shouldn’t be out here, alone with you.”

 

“We’re fine, as you can see.”

 

“He almost broke your pot. He’s a little clumsy—he could break something else.”

 

Alfred’s lips flatten. “You are being quite rude.”

 

“Me? Rude?” Bruce’s gaze flickers to Alfred. “You’re the one who drugged me.”

 

“It isn’t the first time,” Alfred points out calmly.

 

“Like that’s supposed to make me feel better?” Although it had—he hasn’t felt this rested in days. Maybe weeks.

 

“You’ve never yelled at me before.”

 

“Maybe I should have,” he snaps.

 

“Calm down, Master Wayne.”

 

“I am calm. Or, I was, until I woke up and realized it was after four fucking o’clock in the afternoon!”

 

“I think we should speak to your therapist about your medication.”

 

He takes a step back. “Why?”

 

“You’re angry.”

 

“I’m—” He clamps his mouth shut. Tears prick the backs of his eyes. “Of course, I’m fucking angry.”

 

“Why are you angry?” Alfred asks softly.

 

Time stands still. How can he even answer that?

 

“Why, Master Wayne?”

 

He gapes at Alfred. “Why?”

 

“Yes. _Why_?”

 

He blinks.

 

“Master Wayne, you haven’t been angry in a long time. Why now?”

 

“I can’t—”

 

“You can, and will, or I’ll drug you again so you can sleep.”

 

His spine stiffens at the threat. “Fine,” he snaps. “I’ll tell you why. That’s what they—they di—fuck,” he swears, and turns on his heel, his robe swinging behind him.

 

“Master Wayne,” Alfred calls after him.

 

He ignores the call, fleeing the garden, a torrent of emotions raging in his chest. His painful limp worsens with each step. He’d forgotten his cane in the bedroom. He’d forgotten to change, and looked like a maniac, acted like crazy man—because he is one.

 

He follows the path to the left, where it splits off into a winding, narrower but shorter path to the side of the manor, without steps. He has to get out of here on as flat as land as possible. Fast.

 

A branch appears out of nowhere in front of his face. He bats at it with his arm, growling when it fights back at him, attacking his cheek. He pushes it away, but his ankles twists on his next step, and he falls, his weight slamming down on one knee. His fucked-up knee. The knee that’s screwed to hell, thanks to the Joker. Thanks to the man who’d accompanied Alfred to the garden like it was some social event.

 

As if his life isn’t fucked up, already, he has to be watching over the person who’d made him into a cripple.

 

Tears of pain fill his eyes. “Fuck,” he curses, rolling onto his side, curled in a ball as he grips his leg and drags it towards him. Fire shoots up his leg. Biting back a sob, he squeezes his eyes shut until something wet and unwanted slips down his cheeks.

 

Someone approaches, lighter footfalls that cannot be Alfred’s. His heart pounds in his ears, his arms shaking as they’re wrapped around himself. His past creeps into his mind, and he’s suddenly in the dark with them all over again, helpless and on the ground, hands reaching and groping his body without his consent.

 

He breathes raggedly through his nose. In. Out. In—

 

He can’t catch his breath. He can’t breathe. They’d drugged him—and he hadn’t been able to—to—to—

 

“Mr. Wayne?” Jack whispers from above him. “Are you hurt? I saw you fall.”

 

He whimpers, words failing him. The voice is the Joker’s even with the slight modification, eliciting more unpleasant memories. Rachel. _Them_. Rachel. _Them_.

 

He curls his spine more, making himself as small as possible, dragging his hands up from his legs and wrapping them around his head to hide his face. He’s shaking like a leaf and afraid. Afraid of everything, of facing them in this state. Vulnerable, and unable to fend for himself.

 

“Oh, Master Wayne,” a warm, old voice trembles by his ear.

 

 _Go away_ , he wants to scream at him, but his internal pain consumes the plea.

 

He startles at the touch, can do nothing but flinch away, but near-ancient arms enfold him firmly, and hold him there in the grass.

 

Holding him until he can open his eyes to the light coming through the trees, unfurl himself without breaking more, and sullenly follow a quiet Alfred and an observant Jack up the path, through the door, and into the Manor.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! And if you comment, I greatly appreciate the support! XX


	3. Chapter 3

 

Awkward doesn’t describe what he’s been feeling for the three days since Wayne’s “episode.” He’s hardly seen Wayne except for meals and even then the billionaire hardly talks. To him or his butler. He’s little more than a cold, dark statue at the table.

 

Given what had happened, can Jack blame him? He’s probably embarrassed. Jack would be. It’s obvious Wayne is suffering from some level of PTSD and, Jack thinks, swallowing the last of his water in one, big gulp, considering the desperate, hushed words that had slipped from Wayne’s lips, maybe even from...an assault.

 

How or why anyone would harm the playboy is beyond him, and tragic. Whatever had happened, it had done a number on Wayne. He doesn’t want to speculate—it seems awfully rude—and blows out a shaky breath, wiping his sweaty hands across his thighs. Wayne is a victim—someone who still needs to heal—and here he is, whining about being lonely. Big fucking deal. He’s tried not to care that the current set-up bothers him—he’ll have to try a little harder.

 

For now, he sits across from a sullen Wayne at the longest dinner table he’s ever seen, waited on by an impeccably dressed butler and eating the best food he can remember ever having—none of that is absolutely miserable. But what fun is it when his host practically ignores him?

 

He’s gotten to know Alfred better than expected, given their cooking and gardening lessons, but beyond spending time with the butler, he’s had the same human interaction of an unwanted bird shut in a gilded cage.

 

He’ll have to figure out a way to deal with Wayne’s brooding if he wants to survive the future. And, he’ll have to stop complaining to himself about his situation. Things could be worse. So much worse. He could be Wayne, trying to heal from something traumatic. If he had his memory back, he would be like Wayne, in a way. Or back in Arkham, where his life would be a literal prison.

 

Jack shivers.

 

“More, sir?” Alfred asks, signaling to his empty glass with a cautious eye.

 

“No, thank you,” Jack says. “I’ll just take a water bottle back to my room.”

 

“If you wish, sir.”

 

Jack is no _sir._ The title fits the man eating with his head bowed in defeat, his face bound by shadows of the dimly lit room, as if he’s in another room altogether. He wonders if Wayne even knows or cares he’s here, not that it matters in his situation. He’s not sure he’d be functioning half as well as the billionaire if he were in his shoes.

 

Alfred lifts a brow, his gaze following Jack’s line of sight. “Don’t take it personally,” he whispers.

 

“I don’t.”

 

Alfred nods. “Good. Although, it doesn’t excuse his behavior, he isn’t himself. Hasn’t been for some time.”

 

Jack nods sympathetically. “I understand.”

 

“Master Wayne?” Alfred calls out.

 

Wayne stares at his plate and shovels a spoonful of roasted vegetables in his mouth.

 

Alfred smiles, although the billionaire doesn’t look up to see it. “Would you like anything else?”

 

Wayne’s head lowers more, and he reaches for his glass without looking, fingers fumbling to find it.

 

Alfred walks over to him with the tray perfected balanced in one hand and, with the other hand, stops the glass from falling off the table.

 

Wayne freezes as Alfred slides the glass to him. “Thanks,” he mumbles, wrapping his fingers rightly around it.

 

Alfred clears his throat. “None of us have sharp teeth, Master Wayne.”

 

Wayne doesn’t lift the glass—he freezes, breathing heavily.

 

“But it appears you might,” Alfred says softly.

 

“ _What_?”

 

“Are you afraid of your teeth, Sir?”

 

Wayne sighs, closing his eyes. “What are you talking about, Alfred?”

 

“Your teeth, of course. They’re a bit too sharp these days.”

 

Wayne sends him a dark look. “Not enough, apparently.”

 

“You haven’t spoken a word to Jack, hardly one to me.”

 

The billionaire looks away. “I just said about a dozen.”

 

“And it was a fine speech, Sir. Perhaps we should celebrate.”

 

A laugh catches in Jack’s throat.

 

Wayne is not amused. His jaw firms, his eyes fixated on his plate. “What do you want from me?”

 

“Nothing, Master Wayne, but I believe your guest deserves more than the company of a storm cloud at the table.”

 

Wayne pauses. “You’re right.”

 

“Of course I am.”

 

Wayne hesitates before meeting Jack’s gaze. “I—I’m sorry.”

 

Jack shrugs a shoulder. “It’s okay.”

 

“It really isn’t.” Wayne frowns at Alfred. “Would you excuse us?”

 

“Certainly, sir. Shall I bring you anything else?”

 

“We’ll take tea in my study.”

 

Alfred’s eyes widen. “Of course, Master Wayne.”

 

Alfred’s footsteps fade after a moment.

 

Wayne meets Jack’s eyes. “Do you play chess?”

 

He has no idea if he does. “I’ve played checkers.”

 

“I have that, too.” Wayne stands with his cane, which wobbles when he puts his weight on it. “Will you join me?”

 

Jack isn’t interested in playing alone, but he has a sneaking suspicion it might happen if Wayne falls prey to his inner demons.

 

“I promise I don’t have sharp teeth,” Wayne adds.

 

“You just drink blood,” Jack says, without missing a beat.

 

Wayne tosses him a wry grin. “You found me out. Wayne Manor is a vampire’s lair.”

 

“Would explain your nocturnal activities.”

 

Wayne’s smile drops. “Follow me, if you’re willing.”

 

Jack ambles behind him into the hall, cautiously, now that it appeared he’d upset him. “You don’t have to entertain me.”

 

“Actually, I do.”

 

“You don’t have to sound so excited about it,” Jack mumbled.

 

Wayne whirls around, and Jack barely stops in time. He halts in his tracks, wavering on his feet, inches away from him.

 

Wayne tilts his head back to stare up at him, his warm eyes filling with pain. “That’s what you think?”

 

Jack’s mouth goes dry as he stares into his eyes, taking in the fact that—dammit—he didn’t realize he was taller. How the hell is taller than Wayne? It’s awkward. But...nice. In an awkward—and nice—really strange way. If you’re into those things, which he had no clue he was. He must be, if it doesn’t bother him. If he likes having something Wayne doesn’t have, not that he cares about it that—

 

Fuck, he doesn’t even make sense in his own head.

 

“I don’t want you to feel put out,” Jack says.

 

“I’m not... _put out_ , Jack,” Wayne says, mouth twisting in frustration.

 

Then what…?

 

“I can see now that I haven’t been treating you right,” Wayne mutters, searching his face. “I’m sorry.”

 

“Don’t apologize.”

 

Wayne’s brows shoot up.

 

“I mean,” Jack says, flushing, “It doesn’t suit you.”

 

The warmth in Wayne’s eyes fades. “No?”

 

“No.”

 

“I see,” Wayne says flatly.

 

Jack thinks quickly. “I only meant that you have reason—”

 

“To be an ass?”

 

Jack’s mouth drops open, slowly closing it when he sees Wayne’s eyes flash with amusement.

 

“Well, if you put it that way,” Jack says, cringing.”Yes.”

 

“It’s a bad habit,” Wayne explains, shrugging.

 

“Doesn’t have to be. It’s not too late to change and be nice to people.”

 

“Hmm,” Wayne hums. “Not sure I agree.”

 

“You are a nice person, Mr. Wayne,” Jack says.

 

“I appreciate that.” He pauses. “Call me, Bruce, though. Please.”

 

“Not sure I’m comfortable with that.”

 

Wayne grimaces. “Mr. Wayne makes me feel...old.”

 

“Oh.” Jack doesn’t want to add to any self-confidence issue Wayne has, not when he knows he’s recovering from a major trauma, himself. “I’m sorry, I guess I’m just used to thinking of you as—never mind,” he rushes out, when he sees the exasperation on Wayne’s face. “Mr. Wayne—I mean—Bruce.”

 

He stops, flushing.

 

Bruce nods. “That’s better.”

 

“Did you do it for show?” Jack blurts out.

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“Before. Did you act rich just to secure a certain image.”

 

Bruce looks away, his gaze softening. “Usually.”

 

“I bet you did all the time,” Jack says. At Bruce’s questioning look, he adds, “Act that way, that is.”

 

Because Wayne is not the man he thought he was. He’s not insensitive. He’s not cold-hearted. He’s not—selfish.

 

But something in the billionaire’s expression closes. “Maybe, maybe not.” Bruce turns back around, limping forward. “I didn’t expect our conversation to go this way, but at least you’re honest,” he adds in a mumble.

 

He shouldn’t read into that, but it’s hard not to. “I wasn’t before?”

 

Bruce is quiet until they reach the study, and he offers him a chair at the table by the fireplace. “Depends on how you look at it.”

 

Jack isn’t sure he wants to look at it at all, let alone closely enough to know.

 

Bruce pulls out the game and sets it on the table. “Red—or black?”

 

He wants the red, but it seems awfully...ironic. Maybe even distasteful. “You choose first,” he says, curling his fingers away from the board—and the red.

 

Oh, the _red_.

 

Without hesitation, Bruce picks up a black checker, holds it between two fingers, and gives him a lopsided grin. “Let the games begin.”

 

oOo

 

Being around Jack is like being around a friend you didn’t know you had and that you didn’t know you even wanted.

 

Jack is someone Bruce had never known he’d been missing.

 

They play two games, each winning one, and start a third without discussing it, working together like clockwork. As Jack sets his side of the board for the tie-breaker, he wonders at how different this man is from the Joker.

 

Jack, Bruce has discovered, is quite competitive. Of course, the Joker had been, although he’d probably deny it. Jack hasn’t denied it, and it mostly amuses Bruce, who hasn’t had this much fun playing the simple game since he’d played it with Rachel when they were teens. Jack is also intuitive when he plays, has a habit of making wild moves. He has a feeling—a strong feeling—that he does know how to play chess and play it well. He’s looking forward to finding out if this is the case, but he won’t push him today about it. He appreciates that they’ve found a level of camaraderie and doesn’t want to spoil it.

 

Bruce leans back in his chair, arms crossed, watching Jack as he studies the board in preparation for his move. It’s getting easier to disassociate his past—mainly Rachel’s death—from Jack. The more he gets to know Jack, the more he sees how very different he is from the psychopath he’d once known. Jack didn’t kill Rachel. The person that had is, in a way, dead himself.

 

It bothers him. Really bothers me. That the Joker is gone for good, and that he’d had some part in _killing him_ , eats at his soul. For Bruce—and Batman—men who vowed never to kill, but also to protect, this is an unpredictable, unacceptable problem.

 

Jack is here and the Joker gone—because of him. He’d screwed with someone’s life like a god, and let others do the same. And where had he been when _this_ was going on?

 

Lost in his own pain, digging a deeper pit for himself. Ignorant of the truth that is staring him in the face.

 

His stomach knots, gripped with guilt. How can he reconcile this? Would Jack ever forgive him? Can he tell Jack the truth about his own past and accept the repercussions?

 

“Earth to Bruce,” Jack calls out, waving a hand in front of his face.

 

Bruce reluctantly meets his gaze. “Yes?”

 

Jack frowns. “You up to playing?”

 

His mind is slow to catch up. “Playing?”

 

Jack gives him a confused look. “The game.”

 

Bruce stares down at the board, fighting the urge to brush the pieces away with one sweep of his hand, to dispel the self-hate brewing in his mind. Alfred had been right—he’s angry. Angry at himself, mostly. It has to be his depression, or the medication. And it’s unacceptable. How much longer can he live like this?

 

“Bruce?”

 

“Hmm?” he hums absently.

 

Jack slides his red checker diagonally to the left. “Pal, I don’t know where you are, but you’re a million miles away.”

 

Bruce moves a black checker. “I’m sorry.” He watches as Jack moves again. “I was thinking. Too much.”

 

“That again, huh?”

 

“I’m a creature of habit.”

 

“I’ve noticed.”

 

Bruce waits for him to make his play, then moves. “Are you? A creature of habit?”

 

Jack grins. “Not usually. But life here is making me be.”

 

Oh. “We can change that.”

 

Jack shakes his head. “It wouldn’t suit you. At least, not now—maybe it did when you were younger, I don’t know, but I think the Bruce Wayne sitting right here today needs the monotony. Something to give him security, although a part of him likes the freedom of being unpredictable and challenging the people that know him. I think he wants to be stable—to settle down—but deep down inside, he know he’ll never quite be that person, no matter how hard he tries. Or, he’ll come close, if the right people are there with him to help stabilize his moods.”

 

Bruce feels as if he’s looking at himself through a tunnel, and the Bruce he sees is confused, a strange look on his face because the no-longer-psychopath has an almost Joker-like perception of him.

 

“What?” Jack asks, frowning.

 

“How do you know all of that?” Because Jack simply can’t know all of that.

 

“A hunch?”

 

“The garden,” Bruce says slowly, recalling, quite vividly, his embarrassing “episode” in front of him. “You shouldn’t have had to see it.”

 

“It’s life, although it shouldn’t be.”

 

“You’re apologizing for it.”

 

“Seems only right.”

 

“Why do you even care?”

 

Jack’s expression closes. “Hard to believe, huh?”

 

Bruce backpedals. “That’s not what I—Listen. I don’t mean to be rude—I’m just confused—amazed that you are the same person.” Bruce flushes. “I’m not saying this right.”

 

Jack’s silence unnerves him.

 

“I’m sorry.” Bruce sighs. “As you can see, I’ve never been good with words when it counted.”

 

“Except for when you’re putting on a show.” He pauses. “Which you are clearly not doing now.”

 

Bruce smiles sadly. “No. No posturing as a drunk who burned his own house down today.”

 

“That happened?”

 

Bruce grimaces. “Partly. This awkwardness? This is what you get.”

 

Jack blinks. “I kinda like it.”

 

“You do?

 

“It’s...refreshing.”

 

“How?”

 

“It makes things interesting.”

 

Bruce snorts. “At my expense.”

 

Jack rolls his eyes. “You are the most melodramatic man I’ve ever met.”

 

“You haven’t seen the half of it,” Bruce mutters.

 

“That sounds...ominous.”

 

“Don’t worry. Those days are gone.” He expels a slow breath. “It’s time to move on. Speaking of that, I hope, other than your beast of a host, that you’re more than just enduring your time here. Alfred tells me you seem to enjoy being outside in the garden.”

 

Jack shifts in his seat. “I do. And it’s fine, but I was wondering when I’d meet with my therapist.”

 

“Oh.” Bruce opens his mouth then closes it, grimacing. “I’m terrible at this. She’ll be here tomorrow. I must not have told you.”

 

Jack shakes his head.

 

He must not have told Alfred, either, or he would have told Jack. Bruce kicks himself. “I’m sorry.” He wonders if he’s apologized enough in the last five minutes. “I’ll try to do better.”

 

“It’s okay.”

 

“It’s really not, but thank you for understanding.”

 

“Is it the same therapist?”

 

Bruce looks at him closely. “Dr. Harrington?”

 

Jack looks relieved. “Yes.”

 

“You get along well with her?”

 

“From the first meeting.”

 

“She seemed professional but also very concerned about you.”

 

Jack perks up. “She did?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“She’s better than the others.”

 

“How many other therapists have you had?” Bruce asks.

 

Jack looks away.

 

“That many?” When Jack doesn’t speak, he adds, “What happened?”

 

“They thought I was an animal that should be caged,” he says bitterly.

 

“I’m glad you’re not there anymore.”

 

“If you hadn’t offered….” Jack’s voice drifts away.

 

“You don’t know what would have happened.”

 

“That’s exactly right—I don’t know what would’ve happened. They discussed new therapies, things I’ve never heard before. Things that would curl your toes.”

 

Angers stirs in Bruce’s chest. “They’re not allowed to engage in new treatment or practices without conferring with the board, first.”

 

Jack snorts. “And pigs fly.”

 

He’s horrified that he’s ignored the Asylum for this long, but he’s not sure he could find a way to be on the board again, given all that transpired, including coming back from the dead. “I should try to—“

 

“What? To change things?” Jack says derisively, nasal tone increasing. “You’re not that naive, are you?”

 

“I’ve tried—and succeeded—before.”

 

“Yeah? What changed? Your balls fall off?”

 

Bruce’s heart pounds in his chest. He stares at him, sees the Joker instead, _because this doesn’t sound like Jack._

 

“Sorry.” Jack flushes and hunches over, not looking at him. “Not sure why I said that.”

 

He swallows thickly. “No. You’re right. I’ve—I’ve been a coward.”

 

“I don’t think you need to apologize, especially if…” Jack’s voice trails off.

 

Bruce’s heart pounds even faster. “If…?”

 

“Never mind.”

 

“No, you can say it.”

 

Jack looks at him. “You really want me to?”

 

Bruce is torn. The Joker wouldn’t ask for permission to inject himself into Bruce’s personal life—but this is not the Joker. This is a man who is trying to find his place in the world again, and he’s here, with Bruce, trying to find it. Should he shut him down? Not let him have his say? Everyone is welcome to speak their mind in this house—both Alfred and Bruce do. It should be the same for Jack. And they’re each trying to understand one other. Maybe he needs to make himself vulnerable in order for this to happen. It’ll come out eventually. He imagines Jack has speculated about it long enough. Telling him the truth may help him understand Bruce’s moods, his faults, his depression. To know that it’s not Jack’s fault Bruce is messed up.

 

He has to take the first step.

 

“Go ahead,” he says quietly.

 

“You were assaulted,” Jack says. “Maybe...even raped?”

 

Bruce’s world shrinks, his breath catching as a monstrous lump in his throat. He makes himself nod once. That’s all he can do. All.

 

Jack stares at him, looking miserable, maybe more miserable than Bruce. “That sucks.”

 

Bruce gives a small laugh. “You could say that.”

 

“What happened?”

 

It’s the one thing he can’t discuss, even if he wanted to. “I don’t remember most of it, just glimpses, that come out when…” His breath catches in his chest, his thoughts scattering, his mind taking him back—

 

Not again. He clenches his hands into fists, forcing a breath out, then in, his panic at a standstill if he focuses on breathing, nothing else.

 

Jack is wisely silent, giving him time to break free.

 

“You don’t have to explain,” Jack finally says. “Dr. Harrington says I’m too curious for my own good sometimes.”

 

“No,” he says slowly. “I should tell someone. I can’t even talk about it with my therapist. But you…” He frowns and cocks his head at Jack. “I don’t know why, but I feel like I can tell you.”

 

Jack’s lips part. “I’m honored,” he says breathlessly.

 

“I was depressed. Nothing was helping. It was getting worse. Coming back from the dead took a lot out of me.”

 

Jack smiles wryly. “Dying would.”

 

“The person I thought I’d loved,” Bruce continues, “The person I _loved_ —left me. I found myself wandering the streets and drank myself into a stupor in a bar one night, near to where we’d been living. I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings...I wasn't taking care of myself, my knee, or mind, so I was a sloppy drunk. Ignorant of people around me. I knew better than to let down my guard, but,” he shrugs, looking helplessly at Jack, “I was stupid.”

 

“You weren’t stupid. You were hurting.”

 

“I couldn’t even defend myself,” Bruce says with a dry laugh. “Actually, I don’t know if I even wanted to.”

 

“You couldn’t help that you weren’t thinking right. It’s not your fault.”

 

“It is.”

 

“Did they slip you something, maybe?”

 

“I—I’m not sure. I guess it’s possible.”

 

“I’d say it was more than possible. You’re a good-looking guy if you don’t mind me saying,” Jack says, flushing slightly. “And people like that can smell vulnerability a mile away.”

 

“I know how to defend myself.”

 

“But you were depressed. There’s a difference in your ability and capacity to handle a situation like that when you're yourself versus not.”

 

“When did you become a shrink?” he asks, giving him a shaky smile.

 

“Since I’ve seen so many.”

 

“Do you hate it sometimes?” Bruce asks, staring down at his hands. “Knowing who you really are on the inside? Knowing how messed up you are?”

 

“I don’t think we can compare you to me,” Jack says. “But, yes. I do hate it.”

 

“My therapist will be here tomorrow, too,” he admits.

 

“Oh.” Jack pauses, then says, “We’re both pretty fucked up.”

 

“Looks that way.”

 

“I hope this doesn’t offend you,” Jack says, “but I’m glad I don’t have to pretend to be better than I am.”

 

Bruce toys with a checker. “You never have to pretend that with me.”

 

They stare at each other for a moment.

 

“Wasn’t Alfred coming back?”

 

Bruce breaks his gaze first. “Alfred?”

 

 _The tea._ He’d forgotten.

 

“He’s late,” Jack says. “That seems unusual.”

 

“He’s never late.”

 

Something must have happened. And that means—

 

Cursing under his breath, Bruce stands, gripping the edge of the table as his knee buckles under his weight. “I better look for him.”

 

“Do you want me to go with you?” Jack asks, frowning at his cane.

 

Bruce shifts his weight, suppressing a grimace when his muscle spasms. “I appreciate the offer, but I can take of it myself.”

 

Jack narrows his eyes on Bruce’s knee. “Yeah? Your leg feel the same way?”

 

“I know where he is,” Bruce admits. “We’re not the only ones with...baggage.”

 

It’s a stretch, but he can’t tell him the truth.

 

Jack’s eyes flicker with interest.

 

“Raincheck?” Bruce says, already walking away.

 

He can’t invite more questions. He’s said too much, already.

 

“Feel free to stay here, if you want,” he adds. “What’s mine is yours.”

 

“I’ll put the game away and head to bed, but thank you.”

 

Bruce hesitates at the door. “I’m sorry about this.” He really, really is. “I have to help him.”

 

“I hope everything is okay.”

 

A headache begins to pulse at his temple. “Me, too.”

 

 

 oOo

 

Jack puts the game away, as he’d promised. The shelves of books are tempting, as is the bar, but he wants to be well-rested for his appointment tomorrow. Therapy has a way of taking a lot out of him as it is. He needs to be at his best.

 

He’s just about to walk out of the room when he sees it. And it’s the one time—this one damn time—he knows he should leave well enough alone. But it’s name. His old name. On the cover. And his face. His old face. On the front page.

 

Heart thudding in his ears and his conscience taking a vacation, he grabs it, a magazine stuffed behind a row of books as if Wayne had been reading it and then, perhaps sensing Alfred nearby, had discarded of it with haste.

 

But he doesn’t read. He doesn’t have to read to know what it’s about. He sees the date—it correlates, give or take a few days, with the Bat’s reappearance.

 

He has to have it and grips it like it’s last possession on earth. He walks away, mindful of the fact that this is stealing even if Wayne did say what’s his was yours, because he has no intention of giving it back.

 

The Bat’s mentioned three times in this feature, and Jack, like the Joker, can’t stop thinking about him. This is the one thing he has to keep hidden from Wayne and his newest and best therapist. The others had given up. He’s learned how to beat the system.

 

The Joker may have disappeared for good, but it had left a hole in his brain the size of a Bat.

 

Jack walks breathlessly into his room, a slight smile on his face. He places the magazine under his pillow, and sits on the bed, hands clasped on his lap, crossing his feet, swinging them back and forth.

 

He hasn’t had something about the Bat in his possession for a long, long time. And now that it does, he’s happy again.

Something must be wrong with him. He makes a fist and puts it up to his mouth, biting down on it.

 

He told Bruce the truth. They’re both fucked up, but for a few reasons Wayne doesn’t know. And, hopefully, never will.

 

Is this the Universe’s way of correcting the awful things he’s done? Is this Karma?

 

He’s in love with a dead man.

 

A man he never knew.

 

A man he can't have.

 

But one thing is for certain. He’d do anything to have just one chance—one measly chance—with the Bat. And not to love.

 

But to make things right.

 

 oOo

 

Face heating, Bruce backs away into the piano, his hand shaking as he holds his cane. He can’t go down into the cave. Alfred knows this.

 

“Please, Master Wayne.”

 

He freezes, every cell in his body ignoring what it should do and reacting as with his mind—badly. “I’m not...not... _no_ ,” he whispers heatedly.

 

Alfred’s resolute expression breaks. “He needs more help than I can provide him.”

 

“You never said that about me.”

 

“John isn't _you_.”

 

Bruce takes the hint reluctantly. “How bad is it?”

 

“We should've resolved our differences ten minutes ago.”

 

John must have been injured far worse than he’d thought, or hoped.

 

Bruce sighs, resigned. Alfred knows he can't say no if John’s life is on the line. But they can't deny Bruce’s unfortunate and consistent psychological reaction to trauma. And the cave. Especially the cave.

 

“Will you help him?” Alfred pleads, his eyes probing Bruce with so much desperation and need, there’s no way he can say no.

 

But he lifts his chin, glaring at him. “And if it happens again? If I panic? If my hand slips and I injure him more like last time? If I black out? What then?”

 

Alfred looks at him square in the eye. “Then we will cross that bridge when we come to it, Master Wayne.”

 

He grinds his teeth together, fighting the resentment he feels whenever Alfred pushes him beyond his comfort zone.

 

“He’s lost a lot of blood, Master Wayne. I can’t remove the bullet without help.”

 

“Fine.”

 

He brushes past Alfred into the elevator, mouth tight, and, as they descend, squeezes his eyes shut. As he acclimates to his abandoned past, he tries not to inhale the intoxicating scent of his earthy, once-familiar home.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, there is past Bruce/Selina for those wondering. Although they weren’t together for long, it makes up a good part of Bruce’s hurt before his traumatic experience. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear from you! <3


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

Jack’s internal alarm goes off at least three hours before he’s ready. He doesn’t move for at least another hour, having never been one to jump out of bed in the morning. In fact, he’s certain he’d been a night owl at one time based on the way his brain turns on at midnight, just waiting to be challenged. He could be dog-tired, but his mind would still be against him.

 

No, nothing about the morning—this morning, in particular—entices him. It’s dark. Scary. Lonely. Facing an endless list of things he must do, per his therapist, including and not ending with medication that sometimes makes him feel even more exhausted then he already is, among other things.

 

And Wayne doesn’t even show his face at breakfast time, leaving Jack to dine alone with Alfred.

 

He hopes this arrangement changes. The playboy, although sometimes a grumpy ass, is someone Jack likes being around. And, he’s worried that he’ll wear out his welcome with Alfred, who’s bound to grow tired of him like most people had at Arkham once he’d been “rehabilitated.”

 

Rehabilitated. The word had once held promise, but as he’s spent more time in this new world, he’s realized it’s a prison, too. He’ll never be free of who he was as the Joker. Yet, ironically, he’s at the same time almost too...normal. Ordinary. Average.

 

Even if he were alive, the Bat would never look at him twice now. He isn’t particular handsome, with that crooked nose, and the mouth that is hardly interesting, no longer bearing the scars one would see with the naked eye.

 

At least as the Joker, he’d held his attention.

 

Sighing, he rolls onto his side and stares at the barred windows without a single view of the outside world. It’s strange. Bruce has one of the largest houses in Gotham, but it feels like one of the most confining, the invisible bars Wayne has erected around himself since his assault keeping him here. And the windows that aren’t windows at all, but harmless and useless for Jack's sake, are keeping him here, too.

 

If anyone could rescue him—it would be the Bat.

 

He’ll see the therapist today. It will be a welcomed change of pace and a distraction—he needs to stop pining over a dead man.

 

Once he’s ready to greet the world—his limited world of two people—he makes his way downstairs. The house is quiet, but when is it not? Strangely, however, Jack realizes there is no one else moving about the manor. Not even Alfred, who would usually have breakfast going about now, and coffee. But there isn’t a scent wafting in the air other than the furniture polish he’d smelled yesterday.

 

He’s mildly disappointed because he’s been spoiled by the hot breakfasts Alfred makes. Shrugging it off, he finds a bowl and spoon and the dry cereal—those frosted and crispy flakes. His usual fare. He washes it down with the rest of the orange juice in the carton. He cleans up after himself and, hands tucked into his pockets, whistles softly as he makes his way for the door leading to the garden. There’s still weeding to do, and he might as well make himself useful.

 

But seeing the door to Wayne’s study, which is always closed but wide open, stops him. He listens closely, a skill he’d honed in Arkham, and hears slower but consistent breathing. Someone—maybe Bruce—is sleeping.

 

An image of the dark-haired, solemn man sleeping on the couch sweeps through his mind as strong as the craving he gets for chocolate mint ice cream on his bad days. It’s powerful. Unrelenting. Stupid. He doesn’t understand it, but neither can he resist it. He takes a breath, holding it as he slips through the door, his thin frame barely making it through the crack. Back to the wall, his eyes quickly adjust to the dimly lit room, and he finds Wayne’s silhouette where he thought it would be.

 

He watches him for a moment, guilty. He’s not a creeper but here he’s acting like one. His gaze falls on his mouth, the jawline, which looks—familiar? How can that be? Breath catching, he steps forward to take a closer look.

 

Bruce murmurs in his sleep, stopping him. Bruce stirs, the arm resting his chest shifting so that it slides down his shirt, revealing a spot of red—

 

Jack’s heart lurches in his chest, the world around him shrinking into this one moment, but turning it upside down. The red. Red. RED.

 

Nononono—it can’t be—not red—not blood—not—

 

“Jack?” A gravely whisper breaks his rapid train of thought.

 

“Wh—what?” Jack stammers, bracing himself on his back leg.

 

“What are you doing here?”

 

He freezes, his jaw clamped shut. He can’t move a single bone in his body, can’t look away from Bruce’s chest, the stain spread across his shirt. The blood—the BLOOD—BLOOD—pulsing like a live heart before his very eyes.

 

“Are you okay?” Bruce asks, as if Jack’s the one bleeding out, not him.

 

“Wh—what is that?” Jack stupidly asks, raising an almost paralyzed limb, pointing a shaking finger at Wayne’s chest.

 

“What?”

 

“You’re bleeding,” he blurts out.

 

“No, I’m not.”

 

“You’re bleeding,” he repeats in a panic, his body succumbing to a full tremor, “Fuck, Bruce you have to—to—”

 

“It’s not what you think,” Bruce interjects, taking a step forward.

 

“No,” he yelps. “Get back—or I’ll—you’ll— _fuck_.”

 

Bruce’s eyes widen.

 

“I mean—you need help—but I can’t—” He gasps, eyes locked on the crimson stain. “I can’t—”

 

Panic washes over him like a heavy blanket. Oh God, is he dying? Are they both dying? What the hell is happening?

 

His knees buckle. “—can’t breathe.”

 

Bruce grasps him by the arms, lifting him to his feet, and looking at him in the eye. “Jack. I’m fine. It’s not my blood.”

 

He blinks, Bruce’s face unfocused, his brain misfiring. “But—the blood—“

 

“Is someone else’s,” Bruce says gently.

 

“But—”

 

Bruce gently squeezes his arms. “Not mine,” he repeats.

 

His chest heaving, he tries to wrap his head around it. “Then—it’s someone else’s?”

 

Bruce nods.

 

“Oh.”

 

They stare at each other, Jack’s pulse thrumming like a runway horse.

 

“But.” He stops, furrowing his brow. “I don’t understand.”

 

“A friend.”

 

It doesn’t make things any better, in his opinion. Blood is blood.

 

Blood is life.

 

Blood is a fucking nightmare.

 

“Are they dying?” Jack whispers, muscles coiled taut.

 

“No,” Bruce says slowly. “Not anymore.”

 

“You helped.”

 

The billionaire nods and sinks onto the couch, muscles relaxing into the cushions, his eyes fixed on at the ceiling. Jack can see, now, that Wayne is exhausted. Bags under his eyes, fatigue lining his face, hair sticking up every which way, blood on his hands.

 

Blood. Someone else’s blood.

 

“He was injured badly?” Jack asks, wiping his sweaty palms on his pants.

 

“He’ll have to stay here for a week.”

 

Oh, God—no. “He’s here?” Jack squawks.

 

Bruce straightens, looking confused. “This bothers you?”

 

Embarrassed, Jack crosses his arms and pretends to inspect Wayne’s bookcase for dust.

 

“Jack.”

 

He shakes his head.

 

“Talk to me.”

 

“No.”

 

Bruce sighs from behind him. “I’m sorry. It’s inconsiderate of me to assume you’d be okay with him staying here. But I promise you, he isn’t dangerous.”

 

“He’s in trouble with the police.”

 

Bruce hesitates. “Not exactly.”

 

Not a good sign. Jack spins around, charged with emotion. “He is or he isn’t.”

 

“He was police,” Bruce clarifies. “He was trying to help somebody, and it backfired.”

 

He’s not sure he understands. “Wrong place, wrong time?”

 

When Bruce folds his hands, jaw tightening, the billionaire exudes an unlikely confidence and determination.

 

Jack takes a step back.

 

“He likes to help people,” Bruce clips. “Let’s leave it at that.” He frowns, looking up at him. “You’re up early.”

 

“You never went to bed.”

 

Bruce gives him a wry smile. “It’s that obvious?”

 

He suddenly wants to smooth the playboy’s disheveled hair. “Yeah, you could say that.”

 

Sighing, Bruce stands. “I’ll get us some breakfast.”

 

The concept of watching Wayne actually make breakfast is too tempting, and he mentions nothing about his earlier trip to the kitchen.

 

“I’m really not into toast and cold coffee,” he mumbles, following him out the door.

 

“Oh, ye of little faith.” Bruce turns, lifts his cane and points it at his chest. “I’ll have you know, I make a mean waffle.”

 

“Thanks to the little silver machine Alfred keeps on hand called a toaster.”

 

Bruce’s mouth twitches. “Absolutely.”

 

oOo

 

 

Later that morning, when Jack is occupied in the garden, Bruce checks on John.

 

He’s relieved to see Alfred asleep on the cot next to John, but more than a little concerned to see John awake and watching him every step of the way onto the platform.

 

“We have to stop meeting this way,” John says with a weak smile.

 

The cave looks far too much like the places he’d visited with Selina, sounded far too much like the alley in which he’d been left to die after the gang rape, its scent reminding him of his past life and that he’s now a failure. A washed out playboy. A victim. An idiot, for having put himself in the position that he had. And most of all, less of a man.

 

He tries to block out the fact that he hasn’t stepped foot in this place since his assault, but it’s impossible. The only way he can compartmentalise anything, and function in his old world—is to let his anger go unchecked and direct it, all of it, at John.

 

He swallows back his guilt. If anyone can take it, it’s him.

 

“What were you thinking?” he snaps.

 

John’s expression shutters. “You would’ve done the same.”

 

“Without armor?”

 

“There wasn’t time.”

 

“Without giving the area an initial sweep?”

 

“Again, no time.”

 

“You can’t risk—”

 

John’s eyes flash with anger. “I had to risk—”

 

“Right, and if Alfred hadn’t been available to take control of the Pod, what then?”

 

“I’m not you,” John says through clenched teeth.

 

“Obviously,” Bruce mutters.

 

“I don’t have the experience, or even the same way of approaching—”

 

“I told you I would train you—eventually—” He stops when John sighs. “If you’d lose the attitude.”

 

“Is that what this is about?”

 

“What?”

 

“This is about you, not me.”

 

“The hell it is,” Bruce snaps. “You’re risking all of us when you’re lazy.”

 

“I don’t think that’s the problem here.”

 

“It is the problem, and you can’t ignore that this isn’t the first time it’s happened. You’ve got to plan ahead, especially when Ivy’s involved.”

 

“It wasn’t Ivy.”

 

“Alfred said…”

 

“I wasn’t awake to tell him otherwise.” John winces, gingerly touching his newly stitched side. “Someone else. Same height, not quite as many curves.”

 

Bruce arches a brow.

 

John frowns. “I couldn’t see her face, but that’s all I saw in the alley—thought it was important information.”

 

Bruce lifts his chin towards him. “How’re you feeling?”

 

“Like I was in a meat cutter.”

 

Bruce nods. “Want another painkiller?”

 

“What? And miss out on this? The reminder how badly I fucked up?” John laughs, stopping for a gasping breath.

 

Bruce firms his mouth and walks over to the IV fluids. “I’m increasing your dosage.”

 

“Not necessary.”

 

“I have to move you to a room in the mansion.”

 

“The fuck you are.”

 

“I can’t have you hiding here, now that Jack knows.”

 

John grimaces. “You told him?”

 

Bruce runs a hand over his face. “He saw your blood on my shirt.”

 

John blinks, eyes fixed on Bruce’s chest. “Oh.”

 

“I haven’t had time to change, but the therapist is coming soon. I’ll have Alfred help you to the spare room on the first floor.”

 

“There’s no exit to the cave there.”

 

“Exactly.”

 

“I’m not sitting things out.”

 

“You have no choice,” Bruce says flatly. “Shall I list how many knives actually dug their way into your skin? How hard it was to get that bullet out?”

 

“I—I think I got it, thanks,” John says, eyes glazing over.

 

Bruce swallows back his guilt. He reaches over and gently squeezes the younger man’s shoulder. “Rest. I’ll check up on you.”

 

“Bruce?” John slurs out when Bruce is limping towards the elevator.

 

He stops, putting his weight on the wrong foot. Cursing, he stumbles, gripping the cane tighter to right himself, shoulders tensing. “Yes?”

 

He feels John’s eyes drilling his back, but doesn’t turn.

 

“I know how much this cost you,” John mumbles.

 

Bruce blinks at his escape ahead of him, an iron cage that will escort him to another prison. A home with rooms and halls that house his ghosts. He has no respite, wherever he goes, but down here, below the earth, where other voices taunt him—it makes him _bleed_.

 

“No,” he rasps. “I don’t think you do.”

 

oOo

 

“You seem different,” Dr. Harrington tells Jack.

 

Jack’s leg bounces up and down. “Uh-huh.”

 

“Is it being here?” She smiles, eyes straying to the chandeliers in Bruce’s office. “It’s quite extravagant.”

 

“You haven’t seen the half of it.”

 

“Impressive, but do you like it here, Jack?”

 

“It was a little awkward at first, but I’m getting used to it.”

 

“But are you comfortable?” she presses.

 

“More than I was at Arkham,” he mumbles.

 

Her eyes crinkle with worry. “You know how I feel about that place.”

 

He relaxes into his chair for the first time, appreciating her frankness. “Yeah.”

 

“I wish you had gotten out of there sooner.”

 

He shrugs, wondering if she’d wise up and stop consulting with them. She was a smart psychologist, sacrificing a life outside of her patients for her patients. “It’s okay. I’m here now.”

 

“Mr. Pennyworth said you like to help him in the garden. You never mentioned you had a green thumb, before.”

 

“I didn’t remember,” he admits.

 

“Does Mr. Wayne spend time in the garden?”

 

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Uh...not exactly.”

 

She sets down her pen and notepad, peering at him from over her glasses. “You’re tense. Why?”

 

His thoughts go where they shouldn’t, and he shakes the image of Bruce’s episode away. “No good reason.”

 

“Jack,” she prods gently. “We’ve been partners in crime for how long?”

 

He smiles at her choice of words. “Several years.”

 

“Right, and so I know you, Mr. Napier. Don’t think you can sweep this under the rug,” she scolds. “What made you anxious just now?”

 

“Mr. Wayne,” he begins, trying to choose his words wisely. “He’s...different.”

 

“How so?”

 

“He’s...not an ass.”

 

Her mouth twitches. “Well, that’s a relief.”

 

He gins. “Isn’t it? I half-expected it.”

 

She smiles back. “The tabloids don’t give us the whole picture, I assume.”

 

“They give...what he wants them to see.”

 

“Interesting. Have you discovered what he is hiding?”

 

A vigilante? A broken heart? A ravaged body?

 

He bite his tongue, his legs bouncing even more.

 

“Jack?” She repeats quietly. “Please answer the question. I’d like to know the dynamic between the two of you.“

 

He stretches his feet out in front of him, crossing them at the ankles. “He’s quiet. I think being thought dead took a toll on him.”

 

Dr. Harrington picks up her pen and takes notes. “What do you think of that?”

 

“Being dead? The pits.”

 

She smiles. “No, the fact that a man came back and regained his life.”

 

He stills. “It’s not like...it’s not...it’s not that easy.”

 

Her brow wrinkles. “It seems easy to me, for a man like that.”

 

“He’s a little…” He bites his lower lip. “Like me.”

 

“In what way?”

 

“Scared,” he says.

 

“Of living.”

 

He nods.

 

“What can we do to help you? Help you both?”

 

He knows for a fact that Wayne will never except help from her.

 

“I’d wanted to speak with him,” she says. “But he wasn’t available.”

 

“He’s…helping a friend.”

 

“It sounds ominous.”

 

He has to steer the conversation away from Bruce. He doesn’t know what secrets Wayne has, but his gut tells him he can’t let her go down that path.

 

“He disappears like this often?”

 

How would she know that he disappears?

 

“Is he in trouble?”

 

“I miss Batman,” he blurts out.

 

She startles, nearly dropping her pen. “Batman?”

 

He clasps his hands in front of him and nods.

 

She composes herself and jots down another note. “I expected this to happen, but it’s a little sooner than I thought,” she murmurs. “Tell me, Jack, what is it that you miss?”

 

“He made me...feel alive.”

 

“You remember him.”

 

“I remember the feeling of him.” He smiles faintly.

 

“I imagine those feelings are strong,” she says, nodding. “Anything else?”

 

His smiles drops, suddenly feeling very, very cold. “I remember the feeling of disappointing him. Failing him. Teasing him. Taunting him.” He pauses. “Trying to hurt him.”

 

_Wanting him._

 

“How often do these feelings return?”

 

How can he explain to her that it is ingrained in his very being? That he is never not thinking of him? That the dead vigilante has invaded his heart, his mind, his life?

 

How can he begin to tell her that his soul belongs to a man who will never return except for in his best dream? His nightmares?

 

“Hardly ever.” He lets his arms go limp by his side, grinning at her. “I think this place is doing wonders for me. For being such a big place, there isn’t a bat in sight.”

 

oOo

 

Thirty minutes into his own therapy session, Bruce regrets ever agreeing to counseling, even if had been for Alfred’s sake.

 

“I can sit here in silence for the hour you allotted to this time,” his therapist says, “but I fear I’m keeping you from something more pressing.”

 

He doesn’t take the bait.

 

“Am I holding you back today, Bruce?”

 

He wonders if it’s being too rude if he doesn’t talk at all.

 

“Something tells me you’ve had a bit of a...relapse.” She pauses while he stands and turns his back towards her as he stares out the window, as if mesmerized by the continuous rain plaguing Gotham.

 

“It’s normal,” she adds softly. “Nothing to be ashamed of.”

 

He snorts. “Falling apart in front of your houseguest isn’t reasonable cause for embarrassment?”

 

“Falling apart? Explain.”

 

“I had a flashback of sorts,” he admits. “A...panic attack?”

 

He’s not sure what it had been.

 

“It must be terribly difficult.”

 

“He must think I’m crazy,” he mutters.

 

“Is he put off by you?”

 

“Only when…” He has a man who is bleeding out in his house, who must remind Jack of his former obsession with blood. “No. I don’t know. Maybe?”

 

“Do you feel overwhelmed by his presence here? It could be too soon.”

 

“I need to help him.”

 

“Why?” she asks softly.

 

“He has no one.”

 

“He has the medical professionals at Arkham.”

 

“No...friends.”

 

“Why do you think you can be a friend to him?”

 

He can’t answer that. Not unless he tells her he knows, firsthand, who Jack had been in his former life. And what he is trying to run away from. That he sees himself in Jack and recognizes the delicate balance between their sanity and insanity. And it terrifies him.

 

He turns to her, saying, “I think you need to go now.”

 

“I don’t want to leave you when I see that much pain in your eyes, Bruce.”

 

He winces.

 

“Do me a favor?” she asks, getting up from her chair.

 

“Yes?”

 

“Consider taking Jack on an outing this week.”

 

His mouth drops open. “What? Are you out of your mind?”

 

Go somewhere with Jack? So soon? With Bruce as unpredictable as he is? It’s embarrassing to be the one who is more unhinged.

 

Although, Jack isn’t as self-assured as he comes across, either.

 

“Is this a prison?” she asks bluntly when he’s far too quiet.

 

He glares at her, because they both know what this mansion is to him. But for Jack? He swallows hard. “Well, no…”

 

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Jack sees it that way on his bad days.”

 

“It’s not a damn prison,” he growls.

 

She smiles, unaffected by his outburst. “Then take a short trip. Even if it’s for part of the day. To a park, or a museum. Have lunch at your favorite cafe.”

 

“I don’t have a favorite cafe.”

 

“Then let him choose. If you face it together…” Her voice fades, and she shakes her head. “On second thought, maybe—”

 

“No.” He stands deep in thought. “No—it might be good for him.”

 

“For him? For Jack?”

 

He waits a moment, then nods once, slowly.

 

Her mouth twitches at the corners. “I see. Let me know if and when you do,” she says, putting her notes away, her eyes sparkling with something Bruce can’t quite grasp. “I’d like to be on call.”

 

“On call,” he repeats.

 

“In case one of you forgets how to hail a cab.”

 

He blinks at her.

 

“I’m kidding,” she says, smiling.

 

“I know,” he says stiffly.

 

She takes his hands. “It will be alright, Bruce.”

 

“Alfred will see you out,” he says, jaw tight.

 

“Keep me posted,” she reminds him, letting go of his hands.

 

“I didn’t say I’d do it.”

 

“You did, actually, in so many words.”

 

“I’m not doing it.”

 

“You have to,” she points out. “It’s in my notes, already. In pen.”

 

He narrows his eyes, staring at her down his nose. “You are the...most conniving...impossible therapist I’ve ever known.”

 

She turns away, smiling. “That’s high praise, coming from you.”

 

“It’s not a compliment,” he calls out to her when she’s already down the hall.

 

It isn’t. He wonders if he should fire her now—or later.

 

His shoulders sag and he sinks, deeply, back into a seat on the couch, loosening his tie and unbuttoning his collar.

 

An outing?

 

He’d known this day was coming.

 

He’d known, yet he’d hoped he could delay the possibility. Jack and Bruce—the Joker and the Bat—out for lunch? In Gotham in broad daylight?

 

It doesn’t get any stranger than that.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Reviews are always appreciated and feed the muse! ❤️

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! :)


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